It's been 6 yrs since we've seen an "Average" camera...

J A K said:

BTW, I don't understand your Phil/honesty comment at all ...?

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It was in relation to his reply to the OP saying "Yep, we don't bother with them" (average or below average cameras).

My concern is how does DPR know which are the inferior cameras without bothering to test them and how do we know that a camera that hasn't been tested was simply overlooked or just plain bad?

My feeling is that there are bad cameras in the market but DPR is unwilling to come out and say so for fear of offending the manufacturer.

J A K said:

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

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n/t means no text.

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

Chris59 said:

My concern is how does DPR know which are the inferior cameras without bothering to test them ...

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If see that an apple pie's first ingredient is "cardboard," would you be interested in a taste test? Would you be willing to pay for an FDA-conducted study of whether it is worthy of being on the kitchen table? Os is it possible that such an effort might, just might, be a waste of time?

--
'I have no responsibilities here whatsoever'

RoyGBiv said:

Chris59 said:

My concern is how does DPR know which are the inferior cameras without bothering to test them ...

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If see that an apple pie's first ingredient is "cardboard," would you be interested in a taste test? Would you be willing to pay for an FDA-conducted study of whether it is worthy of being on the kitchen table? Os is it possible that such an effort might, just might, be a waste of time?

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To continue with this "analogy" I think that it would be a valuable lesson for the manufacturer if a full and proper test was conducted for no other reason than to embarrass them into improving their product and providing competition. Of course, with your analogy, people would stay away from the product in droves (if they bothered to read the ingredients) or buy the product once and never buy it again, but this is not the case with cameras.

With cameras (as with all "durable" products) it is important to see objective tests because people will otherwise choose on the basis of price, brand name, "reputation", salesman's recommendation, looks, specifications and "features" (think cars). Being a durable product and one which costs quite a bit of hard earned money, people are unlikely to replace their purchase should it prove to be substandard - and that is assuming that they understand and can see just how substandard it really is.

I say let's have a look at some "bad" cameras to see just how bad they really are!

RoyGBiv said:

--
'I have no responsibilities here whatsoever'

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In my home studio. ;D

RoyGBiv said:

I just noticed...it's been 6 years since DPR's rated a camera as "Average." I guess that's a good thing...you can't go wrong!

--
'I have no responsibilities here whatsoever'

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--
People who claim to be open minded never see it my way.

RoyGBiv said:

I just noticed...it's been 6 years since DPR's rated a camera as "Average." I guess that's a good thing...you can't go wrong!

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In that time, I think all, or almost all, DSLRs have been reviewed.
Mathematically, how can they all be rated higher than average?
DPReview seems to have its very own definition of "average" ;-)

--
Patco
A photograph is more than a bunch of pixels

DPR uses the term recommended and it's not difficult to comprehend that just about every manufacturer that makes a DSLR makes one that's pretty darned good and it certainly could be comfortably recommended (depending on the user's needs and wallet).

DPR's use of various levels of Recommended works pretty well AFAIC. I don't have a major problem understanding the difference between highly recommended , recommend , or highly recommended (just) . I'm not saying the DPR approach is perfect and no improvements are required, just that it's okay with me.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

J A K said:

"Average" is OP's choice of words.

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"Below Average", "Average", "Above Average", "Recommended" and "Highly Recommended" are the DPReview scale rating terms, not the OP's.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/default.asp?view=rating

J A K said:

DPR uses the term recommended and it's not difficult to comprehend that just about every manufacturer that makes a DSLR makes one that's pretty darned good and it certainly could be comfortably recommended (depending on the user's needs and wallet).

DPR's use of various levels of Recommended works pretty well AFAIC. I don't have a major problem understanding the difference between highly recommended , recommend , or highly recommended (just) . I'm not saying the DPR approach is perfect and no improvements are required, just that it's okay with me.

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Sure, using those various levels of recommendations, simplistic as they are, and eliminating "Below Average", "Average", "Above Average" would make sense, as mathematically, it's impossible for every DSLR to be better than average.

--
Patco
A photograph is more than a bunch of pixels

This topic comes up about once a year. It leads to an odd logical conclusion. All reviewed cameras are above average. Therefore an unreviewed camera is either not better than average or it is.

In other words no conclusion can be drawn about a camera that is not reviewed no matter how potentially interesting. If the camera you are interested in has been reviewed here, lucky you. Otherwise look elsewhere.
--
-wick

This situation only seems odd if you use the mathematical definition of the word average... which means "adding up a set of numbers, dividing them by the quantity and calculating the result." Or the statistical definition or "being at the midpoint" or "being the most common number in a set" as in median or mode.

If you apply those definitions, then it seems bizarre that 86% of a group turn out to be "average or above."

But that isn't how Dpreveiew uses the term.

It's pretty evident that they are using "average" to mean "ordinary" or "mundane." In fact, they have told us this many times.

And further, they DO NOT test the entire universe of cameras released. Just the ones they find interesting, innovative, or news worthy.

Dpreview doesn't seem to waste a lot of effort testing bad cameras. They only seem to do this if it is news worthy. Like if Canon lays an egg.

If they wanted to test every camera made, assuming it was even possible, then you would be treated to dozens of reviews waring you about $89 Norcents, Sakars, Digigital Concepts, Vivitars and no-name generic cameras sold at mass retailers. But then you might have to wait three years to see a review for the Nikon D5000, rather than waiting two months.

Would anyone really want them to do that?

There are other sites that review a much wider range of cameras. Of course, their reviews are not as thorough, and some are nothing more than glorified press releases.
--
Marty
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marty4650/sets/72157606210120132/show/
http://marty4650.zenfolio.com/p82379129/slideshow#h275db7e6

Panasonic FZ30, LX2, TZ5
Olympus E-510, Zuiko 12-42mm, 40-150mm, 70-300mm, Hexanon 40mm, 50mm

PhotoTraveler said:

It's no different than school. They make and exam, everyone takes it. You don't expect the mean to be 50% with an even number of folks getting 100% and those getting a 0%. You can have the average be 100%, which would simply mean all students fully understood the material covered.

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Hmmm...

I had several classes in college where the average was below 30%...and everybody passed the class. The problem was that the teachers were idiot savants. I'm not sure this is relevant to the dpr discussion?

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
'I'm from Texas. We have meat in our vegetables.'
Trenton Doyle Hancock